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      July 28, 2018VanillaJack Rhodehamel

      I should’ve gone out for iced-cream,
      Before the doctors pronounced me dead,
      Nothing crazy, just vanilla—
      Then a bullet in my head.
      I should’ve brought along some rainclouds,
      For when my mother’s love ran dry,
      I thought I could weep myself a river,
      But in the end I couldn’t cry.
      I just wish I could go back in time,
      To leave nothing up to chance,
      I’ve been wanting to waltz around the pain,
      Maybe I’ll teach myself to dance.
      I should’ve made a script and kept to it,
      Cause I played the part so wrong,
      They’ve all but abandoned me now,
      Maybe I wasn’t meant to belong.
      It kills me when they yell my name,
      Like I never even mattered,
      They just screamed so loud I couldn’t hear,
      That my own heart had shattered.
      I wonder what I thought this morning,
      Did I know the world would end?
      If I did, why didn’t I realize—
      That all I needed was a friend.

      from 2018 RYPA

      Jack Rhodehamel (age 13)

      Why do you like to write poetry?

      “I write because it’s intuitive. I have no process nor purpose for my writing; it just comes over me in a frenzy and is gone within the hour. I don’t believe in art for art’s sake. It is a need—not a performance.”